Three-time world champion Rubilen Amit is an inspiration on and off the table.
Kayecee Mosca loves the game of billiards.
You would think the 24-year-old from Lipa, Batangas would like golf more. After all, she works as a caddie in Fernando Air Base, Lipa’s public military course. Yes, she does get out on the links every now and then, but it’s amongst the solids and stripes where she finds true peace.
Mosca regularly plays in the Amit Cup, the series of tournaments for women pool players that three-time world champion Rubilen “Bingkay” Amit founded two years ago with pool enthusiast Ren De Vera. Mosca finished runner-up in her division when she first joined.
“Kaya po ako sumasali sa Amit Cup kasi gusto ko din maranasan mag champion. Kaya po sali lang din po ako ng sali. Hindi po ako nawawalan ng chance kasi sabi ko sa sarili ko mag cha-champion din ako,” says Mosca, who doesn’t mind paying the PHP 188 bus fare from Lipa to Cubao every time there is a tournament. She says players come from even further away to join, as far as Baguio and Pampanga.
“When I started playing in 2005, I always wanted to pave the way for women’s pool,” Amit, now 42 years young, explains to The GAME.
“At that time kasi, konti pa lang kami (competing at a high level abroad). It was just us three, me, Iris Ranola, and Mary Ann Basas.”
“When we would go abroad, madaming players from Korea, madaming players from China. I thought to myself, if I win, they (Filipinas) would see na pwede pala maging billiard player ang isang babae, then this would attract more women players. Pero hindi pa rin.”
Rubilen Amit won her first 10 ball world titles in 2009 and 2013. The avalanche of Filipina players would not materialize immediately. In 2019 she attempted to offer free lessons to female pool players. Few signed up.
In May of 2022 and with the pandemic winding down De Vera organized a women’s tournament and asked Amit if he could name it after her. She obliged. The competition attracted 24 shooters, which the two felt was already impressive.
Amit actually missed that first leg because she was in the Southeast Asian Games winning a pair of golds. But upon her return from Vietnam, she was so energized that they had a second Amit Cup the very next month, in June. About thirty players showed up. In the next event, forty. Attendance continued to snowball, and in the most recent Amit Cup, held a few weeks ago, an astonishing 135 female shooters participated. It was the second leg of the third season.
Amit Cup has grown so much that sponsors like Scarab, a crypto coin, and pool cue maker Predator have joined in to help fund the expenses.
Amit captured her third world title, this time in 9 balls, last month in New Zealand, downing Siming Chen in a best-of-three final for a US$50,000 prize.
And yet, you feel that the Cebuana’s exploits off the table, like the tournaments that bear her name, just might be her greatest legacy. She is much, much more than just a talented pool player. But let’s pick up her story with a remarkable Indian summer in her career.
Workouts and wonders of science
The history books will note that there was a gap of four years between Amit’s first and second world titles, then eleven between the second and third ones. Bingkay says that we should not read too much into this. She reached the semifinals in two World 9 Balls in consecutive years from 2018 to 2019, so she was far from being in a barren period in her career in those eleven years.
But something changed in 2024. Rubilen decided to put fitness and technology in her corner. With the help of coach Allan Baylon, Rubilen Amit began a fitness regimen that focused on mobility and core strength. She was given a varied routine that included resistance bands, medicine ball workouts, and kettlebell work. The sessions at times stretched up to three hours in length, two or three times a week.
Yes, this is a billiards player we are talking about here. So remember this whenever someone tries to tell you that billiards is not a sport.
Amit also started swimming workouts in Ace Water Spa Pasig with coach Al Gonzales. This was all a part of her plan to fix her troublesome back. Back pain is an occupational hazard for pool players, and since the pool stance is asymmetrical, Gonzales would at times make her swim with a fin only on one side, to balance things out.
“The only time I did this (strength and conditioning) was this year. I became world champion again, then in the China Open, third place,” says Amit with unabashed pride.
But Amit had another secret weapon up her sleeve. Tucked away on West Avenue, Quezon City, lies the Vision Science Institute, where Vision Therapy Philippines is located. As Amit describes it, the process of vision therapy is literally and figuratively eye-opening.
“I realized that when I focused on something, I was actually looking at a point above it,” explains Amit.
“They have a lot of exercises in the clinic to work on aim and reaction time. They have this board where dots light up, how fast you react to it, how accurate you are. May shot clock kasi sa billiards.”
The exercises also aid in her depth perception. Amit discovered that her eyes perceived objects closer than what they really were. The various exercises correct these issues.
“I hope other athletes can do this. Sobrang laking tulong,” enthuses Amit.
The best part about it is that the owners of the institute, Charlie Ho and Maia Uy, offer these weekly one-and-a-half sessions to her free of charge. He has a real heart for sport, having been involved with Philippine Netball for a number of years.
Life outside the table
“I would say pre-pandemic, I was a one-box person, meaning I didn’t have anything except for billiards,” muses Amit.
“But this time around, may ibang activities.”
Rubilen Amit has earned a pretty decent chunk of change from her billiards winnings. And she has put the funds to good use.
The image of a pool player might be that of a degenerate wastrel. Where money makes a brief pit stop in the wallet before immediately flowing out like water through a culvert towards frivolous expenses. But Amit follows the lead of other Filipino pros like Bebeng Gallego and Jeff De Luna by investing wisely, starting businesses, and procuring rental properties.
Amit and her partner of twenty years, Jazz, have a condo they rent out. They have also partnered with her fellow world champ Carlo Biado in a Shawarma Shack venture in Ayala Mall Manila Bay. Two other Filipino champs, Johann Chua and Chezka Centeno, are her partners in a branch of the Kadiliman E-Sports Cafe.
Amit is a good friend of national team bowler Biboy Rivera, who, like her, is a UST graduate who also became a world champion. Rivera won his world title in 2006. (I incorrectly reported in a recent article that Amit was the only UAAP school graduate to win a world title. Rivera proves me wrong! Apologies.) She and Rivera have invested in a commercial lot in Pampanga and their plan is to put up a building and get a bank, restaurant, or cafe to lease the space.
The way forward
Bingkay is also cognizant of the incredible explosion in the sport in the past year or so and wants to keep the surge going.
“I think with social media now, it (the billiards boom) will last. It stirs up a lot of interest from not only people really into billiards but those who are patriotic. When you go to a billiard hall now you see younger players, or the older generation na bumabalik ngayon. And the pool halls that opened with five or six tables are now expanding to ten or twelve. And now billiard halls open with 20 tables. I have heard of billiard halls who want to open with thirty tables, forty tables, grabe ang billiards ngayon. But it’s about time. We have to recognize that billiards is one of the sports we can really excel in on the world stage.
“I spoke to Chezka in New Zealand. Dalawa lang tayo representing the Philippines right now. We seldom go abroad to compete. For Chezka, it was her second (overseas tournament) of the year. For me, it was the first. And yet here we are, taking the title,” explains Amit.
She goes on to list the many Filipinos who have snapped off tournaments in recent times, like Jeff Ignacio, Chua, and Biado. The subtext is clear: we could be bringing even more honor to the country if we could only have more players competing internationally.
Amit is a proud Thomasian, and this is reflected in her other ambition for the game.
“Having billiards as a UAAP sport is one of my dreams,” she asserts.
“Through this, talented young billiard players would be given a chance to have a scholarship in a university,” she explains.
Amit, who got an Accountancy degree from UST, isn’t the only top pool player with academic sheepskin. Roberto Gomez, a world 9 ball finalist is a university grad, as is Marlon Manalo. They prove that being great in pool doesn’t mean abandoning an education.
Meanwhile, Amit will continue growing the game. There will be more Amit Cups coming, and players like Kayecee Mosca will keep on joining. But one player is done with the Amit Cup. She will likely never play in one again. Her name is Denise “Denden” Santos. And the reason why is simple: she is just too good.
The Amit Cup Facebook page has a reel of Santos unboxing a hoodie with the words “Amit Elite” on it. Santos then puts it on with pride.
Denden is a former national team snooker player who has switched to pool and is, according to some observers, close to or at the level of Amit and Centeno. She might become another world champ one day, and she is an Amit Cupper. Or to be specific, an Amit Cup alumna. She is no longer eligible for the competition. She has bigger fish to fry.
The next generation is in the pipeline. Rhaki Constantino from Zamboanga and Cheeya Navarro are the next in line. Honed in the Amit Cup, the 13-year-old Constantino, from Zamboanga del Sur, is entered in a juniors event in Hanoi along with Navarro, a 17-year-old from Antipolo. They too played Amit Cups. Carmille Buhat Lumawag, from Bacolod, is another promising shooter and Amit Cupper.
These amazing Filipina athletes have Rubilen Amit as their North Star. A player who doesn’t just rise up to dizzying heights, but wants everyone to come along for the ride as well.
Text BOB GUERRERO
Photography LORENZO CORRO
Creative Direction MARC YELLOW and CAS ASEOCHE
Hair and Makeup STELLA FAB of NIX INSTITUTE OF BEAUTY
Styling ROSHNI MIRPURI of THE CLOSET CULTURE
Sittings Editors SID VENTURA and ANNIKA CANIZA
Shot on Location VIP BILLIARD HALL
Production Coordination ANTHONY MENDOZA